My Foray into My Midwestern Roots

A Butcher, a Baker, a . . . Harnessmaker?!

Yep – you read that right! A Harnessmaker! Wanted to list the occupations of folks in my family history file so I spent a little time yesterday evening going through the list. I haven’t input some occupations yet so this is really an incomplete listing. Most of the occupations I’ve found either through censuses or obituaries or my own personal knowledge. Most of the women in the censuses were usually “house keepers” or “house wives” or “homemakers” and that would be a ton of them. I didn’t count those. So here are some interesting facts:

The Top Occupations included: Farmer (38), Minister (11), and Teacher (8). The ministers included 1 Nun, 1 elder in a church, and ministers who were evangelical, circuit riders, Officers in the Salvation Army, “First Church” (don’t know if that was Baptist or what), and Methodist. The teachers included a principal and a college president. Other occupations included:

Some people had two or three different occupations in their lifetime. I’m not talking about doing the same type work at several different locatons. My grandfather was a coal miner, a machine press operator for a novelty company, and a house painter. My other grandfather started off as a “chauffeur” – not a limo driver – before going into the military for most of his life. He also was a volunteer Fire Chief and employed with the Civil Service after his retirement from the military. I think that researching the occupations is interesting. Go find out what “chauffeur” was back in 1920 or what a Teamster was (not the same kind that Jimmy Hoffa was!). Some are pretty self-explanatory. What did you come up with?